My Career with Jo Donnelly

Interviewee:

Jo Donnelly
CEO
London Pensions Fund Authority

In this interview Jo Donnelly sat down with LAPF Investment’s Chloe Whelan to reflect on a career spanning policy, governance, and leadership amid a career transition, as she steps back from her role at the LGA to take up her new position as CEO of the London Pensions Fund Authority.

Few people in the world of pensions can say they have seen it from every angle. Jo Donnelly, with a career spanning the NHS, HM Treasury, the Local Government Association (LGA), and now, the London Pensions Fund Authority (LPFA), is one of them.

As Jo steps into her new role as Chief Executive Officer of LPFA, she sat down with LAPF Investments to reflect on the most significant moments of her career, and the people and the personal challenges that have shaped it.

Jo joined the LGA in early 2021 as Senior Pensions Secretary before becoming Head of Pensions the following year. Both roles came with immense responsibility and the task of acquainting herself with the specific nature of the LGPS, as well as, for the latter, the challenge of stepping into the shoes of a well-known predecessor, Jeff Houston.

Establishing herself in the sector was not easy, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic when networking and relationship-building moved online.

“When I first started at the LGA, I wasn’t new to pensions or public sector pensions, but I was new to the LGPS. I had to build a network and get out there,” she recalls.

“It was a challenge establishing myself as a new person in this sector, but everyone was very welcoming. Once I took up the Head of Pensions role, I wanted people to see me as me, and not as a continuation of someone else,” Jo adds.

“I’m very authentically myself. I learned a lot from Jeff, but I was also able to bring my experience and knowledge to the role and take things in the direction I felt was right. It helped me to be confident and do things my own way, allow people to warm to me and understand that there was a change, but also continuity.”

It was also a time of grief. Just before stepping into her role as Head of Pensions, Jo suffered the loss of her father.

She says: “That was so hard. Losing my dad would have been difficult at any time, but it was a time of transition, a handover. It was a really difficult period to know where to focus and how to use my time best.”

Jo jokes that, as a result, one of her largest achievements during that time of transition at the LGA was “partly survival… surviving while under a lot of personal pressure”. But, of course, it was more than that.

Under Jo’s watch, the LGA’s pension team grew from just a handful of staff to nearly 20 members. She played a key role in establishing a new LGA committee in 2022 to fill the gap left by the dissolution of the CIPFA Pensions Panel.

“It was a huge undertaking – I didn’t even realise the extent of it at the time. Sometimes you can’t overthink these things or they become too intimidating,” she says.

“The committee has grown to be one of the most important streams of work the Scheme Advisory Board does, despite being something that didn’t even exist three years ago.”

Jo also championed the LGA’s creation of a national qualification for LGPS employees, giving those in the sector the opportunity to grow and develop their careers with structured training. The #LGPSjobs campaign, which she helped lead, won an LAPF Investments Award in 2024 – one of many professional highlights.

Her role as Head of Pensions gave Jo a deep understanding of the challenges the LGPS faces, particularly in the areas of resourcing and governance. With local government budget constraints affecting recruitment and retention, ensuring that funds and pools have the right expertise for each of their responsibilities is no small task.

“That role is a privilege; it’s absolutely unique. You get to see so many different sides of the operations of LGPS funds, as well as a lot of the challenges,” she says.

“The most important challenge I see funds facing is resourcing – balancing all of the demands and trying to make sure they have the right people at the right time. Pensions is one of the functions of a council, but it’s also quite separate. Funds are facing some of the same restrictions as other council employees, trying to save money and not being able to recruit, but it’s important to help stakeholders understand and lobby for pensions to be treated differently, because it is a separate and important function.”

Against the backdrop of these resource constraints, the workload of those in the LGPS is only becoming larger. Jo says: “The sheer volume of work and how complex it all is, it’s never getting less; it’s always getting more. We have legislation and litigation, court decisions that throw up a question that none of us ever thought about before, and we suddenly have to find a way to deal with it.

“There’s increasing press and public interest in the LGPS, too, and an awful lot of lobbying that didn’t occur 10 years ago. So, while there’s the growing complexity of administration and the work itself, LGPS workers also have to deal with a number of outside influences that are also challenging.”

Building an understanding of these challenges requires partnerships with the wide range of LGPS stakeholders – from those who work within the funds and pools, to those in government, service providers, and the media. Jo says her knowledge of government and of the scheme itself was instrumental in nurturing these relationships.

“My background as a civil servant has helped me in managing relationships with politicians and government departments, because I understand how they operate and some of the challenges that they’re facing,” she says.

“It hasn’t just been a bilateral relationship. It’s grown to be multilateral, because I’ve introduced them to other important stakeholders in the LGPS. That has helped the government to learn about the sector and understand some of the challenges first-hand, through that direct line of communication.

“I’m also really proud of the strong relationships I’ve built with the funds and pools. Making the effort to attend some of the regional officer group meetings has been well worth my time, really hearing directly from fund officers how their day-to-day challenges differ in both the smaller and larger funds.”

While these multi-stakeholder dynamics can throw up conflicts of interest, Jo says the LGPS is moving towards collaboration.

“Recently, I’ve been really impressed by how keen everyone is to collaborate and work together, to learn from each other,” she says. “Everybody is here to do their best for the members and employers in the scheme.”

Evidently, Jo’s role at the LGA was one that required strong relationship management and diplomacy. So, she was perhaps the only person in the room who was surprised to learn, when she won an individual award for long-term contributions to the sector at the LAPF Investment Awards last October, that her peers believed she managed her role “with aplomb”.

“It was a huge shock. I was there for the #LGPSjobs award, and I had no idea. When I heard the announcement, I thought, ‘That sounds a bit like my job.’ Then it dawned on me that they were talking about me. I was overwhelmed,” she says.

“Once the shock of winning my personal award had worn off and I’d calmed down, it made me reflect on why it had happened. To hear how my peers saw me was really flattering and reassuring – seeing yourself as other people see you. I don’t get that chance very often because I’m just trying to get through each day and do my best. It was so special to see myself through other people’s eyes and see that they view me highly, and to allow myself to enjoy that for a moment.”

With the LGA now in the rearview mirror, Jo has embarked on a new role as CEO of LPFA. Having worked in the NHS pension scheme, Treasury, and at the LGA, she is now at the helm of the £8 billion fund – and feels it may be the last significant role of her career.

“I feel like this completes my journey. I’ve seen public sector pensions from every angle – policy, governance, administration, advisory – and now, I’ll be responsible for a fund,” she says.

“It’s a busy time. It’s never not a busy time, but it’s particularly busy this year with triennial fund valuations. There are many reasons to be excited, but partly because it feels like it completes the circle for my career.”

The key word here: “Completes”.

“This job, like my last one, will be demanding, and I want to spend some time enjoying life and living more than working. I don’t know how many years I will spend in this role, but I do see it as my last high-profile, high-responsibility role in the LGPS – I’m not sure there are other roles in the sector that could compare; to be honest.”

Of course, a career isn’t shaped simply by professional milestones. Reflecting on who has inspired her most throughout her career, Jo doesn’t point to a single figure in the sector. Instead, she looks to her late parents and late partner.

“A lot of people think of professional role models, but for me, it’s about attitude and approach. My parents were both working-class, and I was the first in my family to go to university. They supported me every step of the way, never pushing me in a particular direction but always encouraging me,” she says.

“Their work ethic and the support they gave me to pursue my path were the main inspirations for me to do well.”

She also carries the memory of her late partner as a driving force: “He believed in me so much. I take a lot of power and inspiration from living for him and achieving for him. I can point to a lot of people that I admire and respect, but it’s not about emulating them. It’s about being the person I was raised to be.”

For those aspiring to leadership roles in public sector pensions, Jo’s advice follows the same tune: be authentic, be vulnerable, and trust your team. “I’ve never hidden the challenges I’ve faced. That’s been the right approach for me, because you never know what anyone else has faced or is facing, either. If you are authentically yourself, it helps people to trust you and be more themselves, as well.”

“As a leader, you have to learn to trust your team,” she adds. “If you’re too engrossed in the details, you won’t spend enough time looking ahead, looking out at the challenges that are further down the line and how you might navigate them.”

Above all, she emphasises the importance of balance: “Remember, it’s only a job. Your family and your wellbeing should always come first. Taking time away from work makes you better when you come back.”

So, how does Jo switch off from the demands of the sector?

“Crap telly,” she laughs, “and watching sport. Fresh air. And always thinking about my next holiday – where am I going, what am I discovering next?”